Bashar Assad wins Syria presidential election with 88.7% of vote

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (C) and his wife Asma al-Assad (R) casting their votes at a polling station in Maliki, a residential area in the centre of the capital Damascus, in the country's presidential elections on June 3, 2014.(AFP Photo / HO) / AFP

Bashar Assad has won a landslide victory in the Syrian presidential poll with 88.7 percent of the vote. This will secure him a third seven-year term in office amidst a bloody civil war, which stemmed from protests against his rule.

"I declare the victory of Dr Bashar Hafez Assad as president
of the Syrian Arab Republic with an absolute majority of the
votes cast in the election," parliament speaker Mohammad
Laham said in a televised address from his office in the Syrian
parliament.

A total of 10.2 million people voted for Assad. The voter turnout
stood at 73.42 percent. No violations have been reported, Syria’s
Higher Judicial Committee for Elections said as quoted by SANA
news agency.

Syrian officials said the result was a vindication of Assad’s
three-year campaign against those fighting to get rid of him.

This was the first multi-candidate presidential election in Syria
for almost 50 years. The other two candidates for the top post
were Hassan Abdullah Nouri, from the National Initiative for
Administration and Change in Syria, and Maher Abd Al-Hafiz
Hajjar, formerly from the People's Will Party.

Despite the high turnout figures, residents of some areas in the
country’s north and east were obstructed from voting by rebel
forces.

The conflict in Syria has already killed 160,000 people and
created nearly 3 million refugees, as well as displacing more
people inside Syria.

But while opposition groups inside Syria and most countries in
the West have denounced the election as a sham, many Syrians are
supporting President Assad and see him as the only option to
return stability to the country.

“This is our duty, we can’t allow people from outside the
country to decide for us. Our duty is to vote – or order to
protect our country,” Usam Hammami, a resident in the
capital Damascus, told RT’s Maria Finoshina.

Russia and Iran both supported the election and Assad himself has
said that it is part of his efforts to meet the opposition’s
demands.